Feds asked to ensure Catholic hospitals follow law (by providing abortions)

Seattle Times ^ | 12/22/10 | Rob Stein

[Libloather]

Feds asked to ensure Catholic hospitals follow law
The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday asked federal health officials to ensure that Catholic hospitals provide emergency reproductive care to pregnant women.
By Rob Stein
The Washington Post
Originally published Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 10:00 PM

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday asked federal health officials to ensure that Catholic hospitals provide emergency reproductive care to pregnant women, saying the refusal by religiously affiliated hospitals to provide abortion and other services is an increasing problem.

In a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the ACLU cited the case of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, which was stripped of its Catholic status Tuesday because doctors performed an abortion on a woman with a life-threatening complication.

"We continue to applaud St. Joseph's for doing what is right by standing up for women's health and complying with federal law," five ACLU attorneys wrote in a letter to Donald Berwick, the CMS administrator, and his deputy. "But this confrontation never should have happened in the first place, because no hospital — religious or otherwise — should be prohibited from saving women's lives and from following federal law."

The letter was a follow-up to a complaint the ACLU sent in July asking for investigation of similar issues at Catholic hospitals across the country, including refusals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims or perform abortions on women having miscarriages.

"The dioceses cannot be permitted to dictate who lives and who dies in Catholic-owned hospitals," the letter states.

[Campion]

Can’t be whining about persecution yet.

It's persecution whether it comes from hypocrites who claim to be of the household of faith, or from infidels with more integrity.

[Lysandru]

Hmmm...so much for reproductive "choice."

Let's see, it's allegedly none of my business when a pregnant woman wants to kill her unborn child. But if I were an OB/GYN or male nurse at a hospital, I could be forced to participate in this sordid "business."

As it is, the jackwagons at the ACLU want to have my tax money go to support abortions.

[the invisib1e hand]

"We've" been warned that we would reap what we sow. That's not persecution. Its mere justice. It is not heroic for a generation to accept the consequences of that generation's actions.

This generation made its deal with the devil. This generation gave Death Panels to itself.

Persecution, indeed.